Kim S B Ryholt is a
DanishDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
Egyptologist, who works at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute (
Publications) of Near Eastern Studies at the
University of CopenhagenThe University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
.
One of his most significant but also controversial publications is a 1997 book titled "The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period c.1800-1550 B.C." by Museum Tuscalanum Press.
Kim S B Ryholt is a
DanishDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe and the senior member of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries; southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and it is bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark borders both the Baltic and the North Sea...
Egyptologist, who works at the Carsten Niebuhr Institute (
Publications) of Near Eastern Studies at the
University of CopenhagenThe University of Copenhagen is the oldest and largest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479, it has more than 37,000 students, the majority of whom are female , and more than 7,000 employees. The university has several campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the...
.
One of his most significant but also controversial publications is a 1997 book titled "The Political Situation in Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period c.1800-1550 B.C." by Museum Tuscalanum Press. (ISBN 87-7289-421-0) Aidan Dodson, a prominent English Egyptologist, calls Ryholt's book "fundamental" for an understanding of the Second Intermediate Period in his Bi Or LVII, January-April 2000, p.48 Review of Ryholt's aforementioned 463 page book because it reviews the political history of this period and contains an updated--and more accurate--reconstruction of the Turin Canon since the 1959 publication of
Alan GardinerSir Alan Henderson Gardiner was one of the premier British Egyptologists of the early and mid-20th century...
's Royal Canon of Egypt. It also contains an extensive catalogue of all the known monuments, inscriptions and seals for the kings of this Period.
Ryholt's study makes note of numerous recent archaeological finds including the discovery of a new Hyksos king named
Sakir-HarThe obscure Hyksos king, Sakir-Har, was discovered in a recently excavated door jamb from Tell el-Dab'a of Ancient Egypt by Manfred Bietak. His titulary appear on door jamb, Cairo TD-8316...
, the find of a door jamb at Gebel Antef in the mid-1990s which establishes that Sekhemre Shedtawy
Sobekemsaf IISobekemsaf II Sekhemrewadjkhaw was a pharaoh of Egypt during the 17th Dynasty. He is attested by a series of inscriptions mentioning a mining expedition to the rock quarries at Wadi Hammamat in the Eastern Desert during his reign. One of the inscriptions is explicitly dated to his Year 7...
was the father of the 17th Dynasty Theban kings
Antef VISekhemrewepmaat Intef VI was an Egyptian king of the Seventeenth dynasty of Egypt, who lived during the Second Intermediate Period, when Egypt was ruled by multiple kings....
and
Antef VIINubkheperre Intef VII was an Egyptian king of the Seventeenth dynasty of Egypt at Thebes during the Second Intermediate Period, when Egypt was divided by rival dynasties including the Hyksos in Lower Egypt. He is known to be the brother of Intef VI and perhaps the son of Sekhemre Shedtawy...
as well as a fresh discussion of Ahmose's Unwetterstele document. It also strongly argues that the
Sixteenth dynasty of EgyptThe Fifteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, Second Intermediate Period.-Rulers:...
was made up of poorly attested Theban kings such as
Nebiriau INebiriau or Nebiryerawet I was a pharaoh of Egypt of the 16th or 17th Theban dynasty based in Upper Egypt during the Second intermediate period. Nebiriau I reigned for 26 years according to the Turin Canon and was succeeded by Nebiriau II who may have been his son...
,
Nebiriau IINebiriau II or Nebiryerawet was a king of the 16th or 17th Theban dynasty who ruled Upper Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period of Ancient Egypt. He is commonly assumed by some Egyptologists to be the son of Sewadjenre Nebiriau I, his predecessor given the rarity of the name Nebiriau in...
,
Seuserenre BebiankhSeuserenre Bebiankh was a native Ancient Egyptian king of the 16th Theban dynasty during the Second Intermediate Period and the successor of king Semenre. He is assigned a reign of 12 years in the Turin Canon...
and Sekhemre Shedwaset who are documented in the last surviving page of the Turin Canon rather than minor Hyksos vassal kings in Lower Egypt, as is generally believed. Among the most significant discussions is Ryholt's evidence that
Sekhemre Khutawybirth name: Sobekhotepthrone name: Sekhemre KhutawySekhemre Khutawy Sobekhotep I was an Egyptian king of the 13th Dynasty and he is known from several sources, including several Nile Flood records and inscriptions at the Monthu temple at Medamud.A king with the name Khutawyre appears in the Turin...
rather than
UgafKhutawyre Wegaf was an Egyptian king of the 13th Dynasty who is known from several sources, including a stelae and statues. There is a general known from a scarab with the same name who is perhaps identical with this king....
was the first king of Egypt's 13th Dynasty (see Appendix A of his book) and a discussion of the foreign origins of the Semitic 13th Dynasty king named
KhendjerKhendjer was an Egyptian king of the 13th Dynasty. The name Khendjer is poorly attested in Egyptian. Khendjer "has been interpreted as a foreign name hnzr and equated with the Semitic personal name hzr, [for] boar" according to the Danish Egyptologist Kim Ryholt...
--whose reign lasted a minimum of 4 years and 3 months based on dated workmen's control notes found on stone blocks from his unfinished pyramid complex. (Ryholt: p.193) Khendjer's name, which means 'boar', is a foreign Semitic name which suggests he was the first recognised foreign (ie of non-Egyptian origin) Pharaoh of Egypt.
However, some of Ryholt's conclusions are based on limited evidence which can be interpreted in many different ways. His Chapter on the 14th Dynasty has now been demonstrated to be erroneous in assuming that the 14th Dynasty was contemporary with the 13th Dynasty from the latter's founding around 1800 BC until its collapse in c.1650/1648 BC. The evidence from the strata levels of Ryholt's cited 14th Dynasty seals as recounted in a
BASOR (315) 1999, pp. 47-73 book review by Daphna Ben Tor & James/Susan Allen conclusively establish that the 14th Dynasty was only contemporary with the 13th Dynasty in the last half century of the latter's existence. Critically, Manfred Bietak has dated the inscriptions and monuments of Nehesy at Tell el-Dab'a in the Delta--the first known Dynasty 14 king--to Stratum F or B/3 of the Bronze Age at around 1700 BC--corresponding to the late 13th Dynasty. Ryholt's proposal that king Sheshi, A'amu and Yakbim were also rulers of the 14th Dynasty is discredited by Ben Tor's study of the known strata levels of their seals which show that they date to the second half of the Hyksos 15th Dynasty and are not contemporary with the 13th dynasty. Sheshi, Yakbim and A'amu are more likely to be Hyksos vassal kings in the Delta. Therefore, not all of Ryholt's conclusions have been accepted by Egyptologists.
Turin Canon
Ryholt is regarded as one of the best scholars on the study of the Turin Canon having examined the document in person twice; he has published new and better interpretations of this damaged papyrus document in his aforementioned 1997 book and in a ZAS paper titled "The Late Old Kingdom in the Turin King-list and the Identity of Nitocris." Ryholt reportedly intends to publish his study of the Turin Kinglist in the near future.